Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Harvey Ussery <boxwood@nelsoncable.com>]

> I keep reading that a component of local sustainability is to eat seasonally, and that 
> most don't know what that means.  Well, I'm one of them.  Other than what I grow in my 
> garden, which is the same few vegetables that they have in the Farmers' Markets, I 
> don't know what's "in season".  Apparently, there is a seasonality to 
> animals, too, but since I've never grown or studied animals, I know nothing.
>
> E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore

To me, "eating seasonally" means eating *fresh* (unprocessed) food 
year-round. Sure, in the green season that means tomatoes, beans, and 
salads. But in the winter, you can eat *fresh* vegetables and fruits 
that store naturally without artificial processing--carrots, cabbages, 
apples, winter squash, onions and garlic, potatoes and sweet potatoes, 
the list goes on and on. And don't forget that you don't have to take 
winter's bossiness lying down: growing in a cold frame (a few square 
feet, or greenhouse size) can provide fresh cold-hardy salads and 
potherbs right thru the dead of winter.

As for seasonality of animals: Traditionally some animals were 
slaughtered in a particular season--e.g. pigs--and if you wanted to eat 
their meat other times, you had to cure it in some fashion (bacon, ham). 
But any animal you can keep alive--e.g. using stored hay in winter--can 
be butchered "seasonally" any time.

We have abandoned the slaughter of large batches of "meat birds" from my 
chicken flock to pack the freezer, and instead are eating the birds as 
we successively cull them throughout the year. Thus eating chicken 
"seasonally" means enjoying that tender young chicken on the grill in 
summer, braised dishes like coq au vin in the fall, and stewing hens in 
the winter. We experience culinary options many eaters do not have 
access to, and are content to wait for the next season to come around 
with its own favored dishes (just as we wait to enjoy strawberries in 
the late spring, and never buy the bastardized supermarket imitations).

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us

"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used."  
~Wendell Berry